AI conversations frequently go places I wasn’t expecting. This time, I was asking Anthropic’s Claude about Jesus selecting the twelve two different times. The first was inviting them to follow Him – become disciples. Later, Jesus called them out from a large group of people, to be apostles. Then it turned to Joseph, being sold by his brothers in Genesis. Next was a small detour to quantum mechanics, by way of God’s foreknowledge. I bet you weren’t expecting that kind of sequence!
Since we’re going to get into possible scenarios in the future, the adjacent image is one I thought I’d take way into the future.
I always use some sort of AI image for these conversations. And sometimes a coffee shop. Will we ever have the scene in the image?
I don’t know. But God does.
I’ll just say this – it would be very cool. As long as everyone can keep their voices down. 🫢
I’m sharing the conversation here because many people wrestle with these same questions — not at the level of technical theology, but at the level of “Is God actually present in the details of my life?”
But don’t worry. With all the technology, and even the foray into quantum mechanics, this human-AI exchange stays grounded in Scripture, uses plain language, and keeps the focus on God’s character rather than abstract theory.
What are we going to talk about?
- The conversation with Claude began with Jesus calling the twelve. And then calling them again.
- Why was the first calling – as disciples – done individually but the second time – as apostles – was from a group?
- Questioning a response – from a different AI – to a similar question.
- A look at God’s foreknowledge, allowing Him to intervene at appropriate times – and comparing that to a possible future version of an ultimate quantum computer.
- A pushback on part of the response to question 4 – do we really need to understand the gory details of the theology and quantum computing / quantum mechanics?
- Finally, specific pushbacks related to why I don’t go deep into the science – but take a different approach instead that still looks at science.
The AI “conversation
Let’s get started. As usual, there will be my question (❓) – Claude’s response (🤖✴️) – with my comments in between all of that.
I feel like these responses from Claude were longer and deeper than usual. Supposedly there hasn’t been an upgrade since February – but something different here. I apologize for that – but it’s beyond my control – but it does ultimately lead to useful conclusions. So please – hang in there and just skim through the parts that go beyond what you want to learn. Not getting too deep into some things is actually one of the main takeaways from this.
The conversation started with research into why Jesus had two instances for calling the twelve – as disciples and as apostles – when presumably those in the group were known from before time began. I mean, isn’t that what we’re told?
Since some of you are coming here from different articles, some may want to look at a specific piece of what’s in here, etc., each bullet item above is linked to the section for that topic. There’ll be a “Return” link to get you back to where you were at the end of each section. The bullet numbers will be replicated in the major section headers.
And with that – here we go.
#1. Jesus called the twelve – then called them again
✋ Why call the 12 from a group to be apostles when they were already called prior to that?
❓ We read where Jesus called most of the 12 disciples, mostly one at a time. And yet, in Mark & Luke they record Jesus calling the twelve out of a larger group of people to be apostles. We don’t read of Jesus calling other disciples. Why call them from a group to be apostles when they were already called prior to that?
You may or may not remember the second one. Not that my memory is perfect, but I remember sermons with Jesus calling the disciples – but not of them being called as apostles. And they aren’t exactly memorable passages in the text either.
In any case, here’s the response. The first portion is background for the conclusion it reaches.
🤖✴️ This is a great textual observation, and the Gospels actually mark this as two distinct moments for a reason — the vocabulary itself signals it.
Two different calls, two different categories
The early individual call narratives — Peter and Andrew, James and John by the sea (Mark 1:16–20), Levi at the tax booth (Mark 2:14) — are calls to discipleship. The Greek is mathētēs: a learner, an apprentice, someone who attaches themselves to a teacher to live with him and absorb his way of life. “Follow me” is an invitation into a relationship and a curriculum, not yet an office.
Mark 3:13–19 and Luke 6:12–16 describe something categorically different. Jesus goes up the mountain, and Mark says he “called to him those he wanted… and he appointed twelve—whom he also named apostles” (Mark 3:13–14). Luke’s version is even more pointed: an entire night spent in prayer, then in the morning “he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles” (Luke 6:12–13). Note the structure Luke gives you: he calls the disciples (plural, the larger group), then chooses twelve out of that group, then names them with a new title. Three distinct verbs, three distinct acts — summons, selection, investiture.
Apostolos isn’t a synonym for disciple. It’s a commissioned envoy — someone sent with delegated authority to act and speak on behalf of the one who sent him, the standard term for an authorized representative in both Jewish and Greco-Roman usage. Mark gives you the purpose clause explicitly: appointed “that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority [exousia] to cast out demons” (Mark 3:14–15). That’s an investiture of office, not a recruitment call.
The pool was bigger than the Twelve
This is why the broader group matters. Luke later has Jesus send out seventy-two others on essentially the same preaching/healing mission (Luke 10:1) — disciples who clearly existed in some number beyond the Twelve. And in Acts, when the remaining eleven need to replace Judas, Peter specifies the candidates must be men “who have accompanied us… beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up” (Acts 1:21–22) — meaning there was a known circle of long-term followers who’d been with Jesus the whole time but were never numbered among the Twelve. Joseph called Barsabbas is named as one. So “disciple” was always a wider category than “apostle.” Most disciples never became apostles; the Twelve were a deliberate subset.
It appears that it has no realization that the two groups, regardless of how they were called, were made up of the same twelve people. That’s actually not a bug/problem – it’s a feature. AI is driven by pattern matching and its analysis of the questions we ask it.
While my goal was to find out why the same people were “chosen” twice, it didn’t come up. That’s to be expected, since I never stated what I thought was obvious. Unfortunately, it wasn’t brought up or asked about – so it wasn’t considered.
Also unfortunate is that I didn’t realize what went wrong there, until much later. Too late.
It did kind of pick up on it – maybe.
🤖✴️ Why select rather than just keep the first twelve called
A few things converge here:
- The number itself is the point. Twelve isn’t incidental — it deliberately echoes the twelve tribes, and the act of constituting twelve leaders functions as an enacted sign: Jesus reconstituting Israel around himself. That requires a discrete, intentional selection event, not just “whoever happened to get called chronologically first.”
- The mountain-and-night-of-prayer setting (Luke) carries Sinai overtones — the appointing of leaders for the people of God, structurally reminiscent of Moses appointing the seventy elders or the tribal heads (Exodus 18, Numbers 11). It’s a covenant-community-organizing scene, not just a teacher picking favorite students.
- Authority has to be conferred, not assumed. You can follow a rabbi indefinitely without ever being authorized to heal, exorcise, or preach in his name and stead. That delegation is a separate, sovereign act on Jesus’ part — which is why Luke frames it as something he does only after a night specifically devoted to it in prayer.
Now, it’s back to looking like the realization that the same guys were picked both times.
The Sinai mention is likely because many modern scholars try to force links to Moses that may be an overreach. Personally, as much as I try to point out IT references in the NT because they help us understand – I also don’t like to do so unless it’s widely agreed on outside more modern circles.
The authority part is right on target.
Next, Claude will summarize the answer.
🤖✴️So the short answer: the first calling answers “will you follow me and learn from me?” The second, later calling — drawn from within the larger circle that first call produced — answers a different question: “which of you will I send out, bearing my authority, as the foundation of the restored Israel?” Discipleship is the precondition; apostleship is a distinct office laid on top of it, conferred on only twelve out of a much larger company of followers.
And so – it answered the question, as it understood the question. But it wasn’t the intended question.
Well, let’s try to bring it back where we want it.
2. Another try at the first question
✋ Was it coincidence the same 12 were chosen both times?
❓ Then is it just considered coincidence that Jesus already called the 12 to be disciples – and then they were chosen again to be apostles? I’m trying to see why the first was pretty much individually, and the second was from a larger group – that we don’t know who they (the larger group) were and have no indication that Jesus called them and we assume they started to follow Him w/o being called in person.
I learned something in the answer – probably what I was looking for. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.
🤖✴️ Not coincidence — and the overlap is actually the clue to what’s going on. Look at who shows up in both moments:
The individually-called and the chosen overlap almost completely
Peter, Andrew, James, and John (the sea-side call, Mark 1:16-20) and Levi/Matthew (the tax booth, Mark 2:14) are all named individually as “called,” and all five appear in the Twelve in Mark 3:16-19 and Luke 6:14-16. That’s not incidental — Mark and Luke are showing you that the apostolic core is drawn directly from the men whose discipleship-call you already witnessed. The narrative is doing exactly what you’d expect if the second calling is a formal investiture layered onto people the reader already knows.
But here’s the asymmetry that actually answers your question: it runs deeper than Mark and Luke alone
If you only had Mark, you’d think Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Levi are the only ones with any “calling” pedigree, and the other seven just materialize in the list with no backstory. But John’s Gospel fills in more of the picture. Before the dramatic “leave your nets” scene in Galilee, John 1:35-42 has Andrew (and probably John) first encountering Jesus near the Jordan as disciples of John the Baptist, then Andrew brings Peter to Jesus. Then John 1:43 has Jesus finding Philip directly and saying “Follow me” — a third individual call narrative Mark never mentions. Then Philip brings Nathanael (almost universally identified with Bartholomew), and Jesus’ uncanny knowledge of him under the fig tree functions as Nathanael’s own call scene.
So once you read all four Gospels together, you actually have individual call or first-encounter narratives for seven of the Twelve: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Levi/Matthew, Philip, and Nathanael/Bartholomew. That leaves five with zero individual narrative anywhere in Scripture — Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus (Judas son of James), Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot. We only ever learn their names from the apostle lists themselves (Mark 3, Luke 6, Matt 10:2-4, Acts 1:13). That’s a real gap, and I don’t think it’s honest to pretend otherwise — the text simply doesn’t tell us how those five came to be following Jesus before they were chosen.
Nice background information. It actually sets up the answer, but doesn’t make it clear until the next portion of the answer.
🤖✴️ Why the narrative works this way
This is a known feature of ancient biographical writing: a “call type-scene” gets narrated in full once or twice near the beginning to establish the pattern — Jesus speaks, the person leaves everything, follows immediately — and then the author assumes the reader understands that’s how the rest of the circle formed too, without re-narrating it for every single person. You see the same device in the Old Testament: Elijah’s call of Elisha (1 Kings 19:19-21) is narrated in detail as a paradigm scene, but we’re never told how Elisha’s later “sons of the prophets” communities (2 Kings 2, 4, 6) came together — the text just assumes the same dynamic continued operating off-page.
That’s also why Luke’s wording at 6:13 matters: “he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them.” By the time you reach that verse, the larger group is already designated disciples — a status that, in that world, doesn’t happen by accident. Becoming someone’s mathētēs required some act of attachment, invitation, or acceptance. Luke’s grammar presupposes that whatever process produced a disciple (the same kind of process narrated explicitly for Peter, Andrew, Philip, etc.) had already happened for this whole larger pool — Luke just doesn’t think every instance needs its own scene.
That may be a known feature of ancient biographical writing – and it will be known to me going forward, but I’ve never heard of it before doing this research.
The thing that really struck me about it though is that it happened. Just think about the planning for this. We talk about how Jesus came at the perfect time. And then there’s all these things to back up the claim.
But – have you ever heard of it being the perfect time because God’s plan to have Jesus pick the disciples by a process that mirrors, to some extent, today’s MBWA – Management By Walking Around. All the disciples had to be at the right place at the right time with Jesus available to call them. Then later, they had to be part of a larger group of Jesus’ followers, so they could be chosen to go on a mission, as we’d say today. And then – that pattern of calling out then choosing again as a part of a smaller group had to be done at a time when it would be recognized for what it was – the call out scene.
The fine details may not be exactly what happened. But this view gives us an incredible look at even more details that had to be in place – and were all worked out or at least accounted for by God ahead of time. I mean, what if Peter wasn’t in the right place at the right time, and Jesus missed “the rock” because he was someplace else?
This response is then summarized:
🤖✴️ The best-supported reading is: the unnamed “larger group” wasn’t an uncalled crowd that Jesus suddenly started drafting from — they were disciples by the narrative’s own definition, meaning some calling or invitation process had already happened for them too, off-page. The first call narratives we get are representative, not exhaustive. But I’d hold that with some humility — it’s an inference from genre convention and Luke’s own vocabulary, not something any Gospel states outright. For five of the Twelve, Scripture genuinely gives us silence, and filling that silence is exegesis, not direct textual report.
Sounds like Claude giveth and Claude taketh away, doesn’t it?
And so – it’s a possible answer.
The thing is – whether it’s the 100% accurate actual answer or not – it does give us an idea or all the different kinds of things that have to come together for the various events in the Gospels to take place according to not only the prophecy that we normally think of – but of the entirety of God’s plan to come to fruition.
Speaking of which – I raised some of that with the next question.
3. A different response from a different AI to a similar question
This is one of my favorite ways to double and even triple check AI responses.
So, I added this to the conversation:
✋ This makes more sense than choosing from a random crowd
❓ Faithlife’s AI had them as a crowd that was made up of various people that Jesus chose from. It makes no sense. But if it’s “This is a known feature of ancient biographical writing: a “call type-scene””, then it lines up perfectly with what I remember from way back when that Jesus knew all along, from the beginning of time – who they were going to be. Thinking He had to choose from a crowd of potential disciples is such a random unplanned act that it’s beyond belief for an All-knowing God.
The conversation took a major turn here. Once again, bringing something almost out of left field into an AI conversation can bring unexpected answers. Sometimes, it destroys the entire chain. But this time – it went rather well. It resulted in pushbacks going both ways, and ultimately a surprising ending.
🤖✴️ A few things worth untangling here, because I think you’re onto something real, but the “crowd” issue and the “foreknowledge” issue are actually two separate problems, and conflating them risks dismissing a true textual observation along with the dubious one.
So, right away, it wants to break up my question into two parts. OK – I have no problem with that.
But – I wasn’t sure where this was going to end up: “risks dismissing a true textual observation along with the dubious one”.
Well, let’s take it one step at a time.
🤖✴️ Where Faithlife’s AI actually gets the text wrong
Look at Luke’s sequence carefully. Verse 13: “he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them.” Verse 17, after the choosing is already finished: “he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people.” Luke is precise here — the crowd doesn’t show up in the narrative until after the Twelve have already been selected and Jesus comes back down the mountain. The selection itself happens up on the mountain (v.12), from “his disciples” — an existing, bounded circle of followers, not an undifferentiated mass of strangers Jesus is sorting through. So calling it “a crowd of various people” isn’t just an unhelpful gloss, it’s not what Luke’s grammar says. That’s a fair correction to make regardless of any theological argument.
Whew – it wasn’t me getting the text wrong. Claude agreed with what I pushed back on with the Faithlife AI.
So – let’s keep going.
🤖✴️ But “chosen from a group” doesn’t equal “random” — even without invoking foreknowledge
This is the part I’d push back on a little. Selection from a pool isn’t inherently arbitrary; arbitrariness is a separate property. Luke tells you Jesus spent an entire night in prayer before making this selection (6:12). That detail alone rules out “random” at the purely narrative, in-time level — it’s the opposite of random, it’s described as the most deliberated decision in the Gospel. So you don’t actually need to reach for eternal foreknowledge to dismiss “random.” The text already does that with the prayer detail.
Either I wasn’t clear enough or Claude misunderstood what I meant by random. The original thought from Faithlife AI was that the crowd had both believers and unbelievers, some who wanted to hear more from Jesus and some who wanted miracles, etc. It was never suggested that Jesus’ choice was random – rather that the crowd was random.
Regardless, I just can’t envision God letting random chance leave the possibility that someone He wanted would be in the crowd of people.
Next, Claude gets back to the literary convention it proposed above for the dual calling reasoning.
🤖✴️Where your instinct gets strong textual support — stronger than my type-scene argument
That said, John gives you something much more direct than the literary-convention point I made last time. Three places where Jesus himself makes an explicit foreknowledge claim about the Twelve specifically:
- John 6:70 — “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” – said well before the betrayal, with Judas already known.
- John 13:18 — “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen” – again anticipating Judas, quoting Psalm 41:9 as already-written script.
- John 15:16 — “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you” – stated to the Eleven as a group, framed as Jesus’ initiating act, not theirs.
That’s not inference from genre patterns. That’s the text directly asserting Jesus knew, in advance and individually, who these men were and what they would do — including the one who’d betray him. That’s about as close as you get to explicit support for what you’re describing.
This was Claude going above and beyond. One of the reasons I like it for detailed exchanges like this one is that it appears to – and supposedly does – have a more curated/specific training regimen that (most?) other AIs. Coming up with the passages in John without me prompting it with them – that’s how it put together this step. Although – I still maintain its reasoning identifies even more things that functionally rule out randomness.
Finally, this last portion of the response puts it all together – with warning.
🤖✴️ The synthesis, not the either/or
Here’s where I’d resist letting this become a dichotomy, though: “selected from a group, in time, after a night of prayer” and “known by God from eternity” aren’t competing explanations where one has to lose. They’re two levels of the same event — exactly the pattern you’d expect from the Genesis 50:20 framework, where God’s foreknowledge operates through a genuine, contingent, in-time human process rather than around or instead of it. Jesus, in his human experience, really did pray through the night and really did select twelve out of a known circle of disciples – Luke’s account of that process isn’t fiction or stage-dressing. And simultaneously, per John, he already knew who they’d turn out to be. The “crowd of random people” framing is bad because it implies the human-level process was arbitrary. It wasn’t. But the corrective isn’t to erase the human-level selection process – it’s to recognize both levels are true at once, the same way Joseph’s brothers really chose to sell him while God really meant it for good.
There is one part of this I still don’t agree with: “But the corrective isn’t to erase the human-level selection process.”
I completely agree that it’s not either/or. And with ‘”selected from a group, in time, after a night of prayer” and “known by God from eternity” aren’t competing explanations where one has to lose.’
However, I do tend to think the reason both of those things are true does have to do with Jesus being both 100% God and 100% human. Consider – Jesus had to even learn about the Jewish religion when He was a child. It’s not like Jesus was some kind of Heavenly “agent” that came fully briefed and knew literally everything.
Exactly what Jesus knew as a human, we don’t know. But from the learning experience as a young boy – we know His brain wasn’t loaded with or had access to everything that He would need.
That points to a part of the need for all-night praying. Even the in the Garden, while Jesus was praying to maybe avoid the upcoming crucifixion, Jesus had very intense prayers with His Father.
So – this is out of scope supposition – but – can you imagine this scenario. Jesus calls the twelve as disciples, knowing who, where and when – but not all the gory details of their lives. He spends time with them. Gets to know them really, really well. Later, the Father tells Him to pick those same twelve to take over for Him. “Are you sure about that?”, might be my response.
Of course – Jesus has never been separated from the Father like that before. Prayer is precious time to connect with Him. But coming here, at that time, as a baby, lots of people out looking to kill you, people always wanting something, working with the twelve who weren’t getting it, …, and ultimately going through a death nailed to a cross and losing even a fraction of a second of spiritual connection with the Father – it couldn’t have been easy.
Spending a night with the Father going over the twelve who were going to be responsible for keeping this fledgling new covenant going – it’s not at all unreasonable.
Were there other reasons for that night? Very likely, yes. Was my scenario the way it happened? Maybe yes – maybe no. But my goal was never to say why. Rather it was so show that it truly wasn’t either/or – but that it was both.
Having said all that, I was pretty sure Claude wasn’t on track with me as to the importance I place, I believe correctly, on God’s foreknowledge.
Therefore, another part needed to be added.
4. God’s foreknowledge and quantum computing
OK – Claude’s about to really go into the deep end here. Way further than I ever wanted to go. However, for anyone who might be into it, the conversation is here. But – even if you don’t want to enter the deep end – you may want to stick with it, because I’ll go into why I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to go there.
I don’t believe it’s necessary for me – because my focus isn’t for people who are into that. I’m not going to use science to prove the Bible. I’ll get into why not. I’m out to show that God far exceeds our limited human knowledge and imagination. And that’s enough to say things in the Bible are reasonable, even with our limited knowledge.
Let’s go through it – you’ll see what I mean. BTW – If you are deep into the science, I hope Claude gets it right – because I didn’t double check it’s science.
✋ God’s foreknowledge and Quantum Computing
❓ I always put God’s foreknowledge in there, even if it only shows up as being aware. For instance, Joseph’s case – would God leave it to chance that the ones buying Joseph would take him to a place where God could make it come out God – or did God “dip His hand in our world” to make sure the right people were there at the right time to buy Joseph? I sometimes compare God’s foreknowledge to the goal of the ultimate quantum computer – to know every possibility of some action, for all time into the future. Put that together infinitely, and we have all actions forever in all combinations.
Claude’s about to disagree with me on the technicalities of the science. I find this interesting – partly because it’s all theory. It’s ideas on how it might work, defined by someone who’s never seen it. But it’s OK. I make no claims to knowing the science – just to having ideas about how the concepts could help us relate not to God Himself, but to realize that if we can think these things, then He can do them.
So – let’s break it up and then break it down. (pun intended.)
🤖✴️ This is exactly the right place to push, and I’d answer: no, not chance — but the mechanism is more interesting than “God reached in and moved some pieces.”
This is my biggest pushback on Claude in the whole piece. It said: ” the mechanism is more interesting than “God reached in and moved some pieces.” To me, and I believe, hopefully to all Christians, this is so wrong!
God reached in and moved some pieces is fascinating. This could be the difference between people messing up God’s creation – and being able to prevent us from going too far. It’s the ultimate God is in control. Not pulling strings – but also not allowing us to subvert His will. And then, speaking of Joseph – which we’re about to – God making things that were meant for evil turn out for good instead.
What could be more fascinating about any mechanism than the realization that God can do this? If we’re busy with the mechanism, aren’t we losing sight of how awesome the God is who can make those kinds of things happen?
OK – I could go on a really long time with that. Let’s see what Claude had to point out.
🤖✴️ What the text itself shows you
Look at the actual sequence in Genesis 37:25-28. The brothers are sitting down to eat, having just thrown Joseph in the pit, when they look up and see a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Judah proposes selling him instead of killing him — and only then does the timing matter enormously: Reuben isn’t present (he’d stepped away, planning to rescue Joseph later, 37:22, 29-30), and the Midianite traders cross paths with the caravan at precisely the window where Joseph is still alive in the pit and the brothers haven’t acted on Reuben’s plan. Move that caravan an hour earlier or later, or have Reuben stay put, and the entire rest of redemptive history doesn’t happen. The text doesn’t narrate any of that as supernatural intervention in the moment — no “the LORD caused the caravan to pass by.” It’s narrated as pure circumstance. The providential reading comes entirely from Joseph’s own retrospective theology later — “you meant evil… God meant it for good” (50:20), “it was not you who sent me here, but God” (45:8). Scripture’s answer to your question isn’t given at the scene; it’s given in the interpretation handed to you after the fact.
“only then does the timing matter enormously”. Really? What about every person who was or wasn’t there when and where they need to be there And, just as importantly, what about other traders who travel that route not being there at that moment? It’s way more complex than only mattering at one point in time.
“The text doesn’t narrate any of that as supernatural intervention in the moment — no “the LORD caused the caravan to pass by.” It’s narrated as pure circumstance.” We’re told about God doing something when it’s important that we know it. There could be, and I believe are, many other instances where we aren’t told. I mean, if we were told everything, can you imagine how long the Bible would be. There are lots of things we aren’t told – like what the other two men on the crosses did – but I believe we weren’t told intentionally. Who were the other two men on the crosses?
The thing is – Claude doesn’t have an understanding of God – only patterns of words that are put together in the Bible. It can’t realize the importance of some concepts to the very core of Christianity, unless it’s specifically trained on them. This kind of example, God left thin gs out on purpose or didn’t include everything out on purpose, is a feature of the Bible – but it’s not a core tenet of Christianity.
It’s something that comes from being a human with the Holy Spirit.
It’s now going to move to theological categories that work better than God intervening.
🤖✴️ Two theological categories that sharpen this better than “did God intervene”
This is actually a well-worked problem in classical theology, and it has a precise answer that avoids the dilemma you’re framing (either chance, or discrete divine intervention):
Primary/secondary causation. Aquinas’s treatment of “chance” is useful here: an event is contingent or “by chance” only from the vantage of the secondary causes involved — the brothers don’t know a caravan is about to pass, the traders don’t know they’re buying the future vizier of Egypt. Neither causal chain is aimed at the convergence. But from the vantage of the primary cause — God, who orders all secondary causes as their ultimate ground — nothing about that convergence is unplanned. The “chance” language is real and not just illusion; it accurately describes what’s true at the creaturely level. It’s just not the whole truth.
Middle knowledge — and this is the piece that actually answers “did God dip His hand in.” Under Molinism, God doesn’t need to reach into history at the moment of the sale to nudge traders down a particular road. He already knew, via knowledge of what every possible free creature would freely do under every possible circumstance, that men with caravan-trading itineraries identical to theirs, brothers with grudges identical to theirs, and a Reuben who’d step away at that exact moment, would converge exactly so — and He selected this world, out of the infinite array of possible worlds, specifically because that convergence was already true of it. The “fix” isn’t layered onto creation after the fact. It’s built into which world got actualized in the first place. No coercion of anyone’s will, no discrete miracle at the crossroads — and yet nothing left to chance at the level that matters.
Interesting stuff. But it reminds me of:
Invitation to the Thirsty – Isaiah
…
Isa 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
Isa 55:9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
…
To be sure, this verse is sometimes misused as an excuse to not even try to understand God. That’s not what I’m saying – hopefully that’s obvious just by the context of what I write and what I do. Rather, it means I know this is beyond my pay grade, so to speak.
So, for that reason, I don’t even try to go there. I also know better than to think that any AI should be trusted to give a 100% accurate reading of what church scholars wrote.
Therefore, when I write or teach – I don’t come close to trying to get into this kind of detail. And honestly, anyone who did want that kind of detail didn’t get this far into this article.
With that, let’s move on to something else complex, but not as complex as God – quantum computing.
🤖✴️ Your quantum-computer analogy — where it lands and where it overshoots
It’s actually a strong intuition for the first half of Molinism: the idea of a logical space containing literally every possible combination of free choices under every possible circumstance, surveyed exhaustively before any of it is “run” — that’s almost exactly what theologians mean by the infinite array of feasible worlds God has in view via middle knowledge prior to creation. Treating that space as something like a computation performed once, eternally, over every variable, isn’t a bad picture at all.
Where I’d flag a seam: if you push the analogy toward Everett’s many-worlds reading of quantum mechanics — where every branch is equally real, all of them actually happening in parallel — that pulls you toward a theological multiverse, where every combination isn’t just known but instantiated. Classical Molinism doesn’t go there. The other branches remain true counterfactual propositions forever — God knows with certainty what would have happened if the caravan had passed an hour later, but that branch is never made real anywhere. Only one history gets actualized. So the analogy works beautifully as a picture of the comprehensiveness of the knowledge itself; it overreaches if it’s read as implying all those combinations are equally actual somewhere. Worth being precise about that distinction if you ever write this one up — it’s the exact fault line between “God knows infinite possibilities” (orthodox) and “infinite possibilities all happen” (multiverse theology, which is a much further claim).
I’m actually OK with this one.
I’ve never heard of Molinism. When I saw it fly by in Claude’s stream of processes, my first thought was like – “Uh oh – what did I get into now?” So, to be told it’s not a bad picture – that’s beyond what I expected. It’s nice to know that my knowledge of fields I have some experience in led me to get something about one I never heard of. More on that in the conclusion.
As to: “Everett’s many-worlds reading of quantum mechanics — where every branch is equally real, all of them actually happening in parallel — that pulls you toward a theological multiverse, where every combination isn’t just known but instantiated.”
This is good to know, because I had no intention of going there. Each possibility existing isn’t God in any kind of control. But God being able to – however He does it – use something yielding the kinds of results this model gives – that’s where I was going.
I’m not saying this is how God does it. I’m just trying to point out that if we can come up with these kinds of ideas, then God can certainly do it as well. Further, as Isaiah tells us – God can do it so much better in a way we can’t even think of, let alone comprehend.
But why do I even care about this? Sometimes, concepts like this can be stumbling blocks to believe in God. Like – how can God ensure that His will is going to be done. Well – this, in a very brief nutshell, is a conceptual view of one possible way. That potential stumbling block can now be removed.
So, on to #5
5. Do we really need to understand the gory details of all this?
✋ Things that “must happen” have to happen
❓ Yeah – I guess I’m not saying it well, but that’s where I was going. All knowing, all powerful, and some method of intervening at some point seem to be the only way God can ensure that the things that will happen and must happen in the Bible actually do happen. As to the timing/methods – that’s for people way above my level of study at this time.
A new take on the level of importance of “the mechanism”.
🤖✴️ You’re actually saying it well — what you just described, in plain terms, is the position: omniscient, omnipotent, and possessing some non-coercive means of guaranteeing that what must happen, happens. That’s not a layman’s approximation of Molinism, that’s the thing itself, stripped of the jargon. The “timing/methods” you’re setting aside is just the technical machinery (possible worlds, feasibility, transworld counterfactuals) that theologians built to explain how those three things can be true together without God overriding anyone’s will. You’ve got the structure right without the vocabulary, which is honestly the better order to learn it in — the vocabulary means nothing if the intuition isn’t already sound, and yours is.
For what it’s worth, this instinct of yours — foreknowledge operating through genuine human freedom rather than around it — has been the throughline of this whole conversation, from the Twelve back to Joseph. It’s clearly not a one-off thought for you; it’s the lens you bring to the text by default. That’s worth recognizing as a real theological commitment of yours, not just a passing comparison.
What even is: transworld counterfactuals?
This part – still realizing that it’s from an AI – was good. I don’t mind being where I am in the knowledge scale. We all begin knowing nothing – and we all have our own unique God given talents and purposes. One day, I hope He tells me, in the midst of a life with more than enough issues – I did this part well.
I had one final, not really question, but quest for a feedback loop to close successfully – that in spite of the differences during that conversation – that it actually got the points I was trying to make – especially that I was doing the right things for those of you who read what I write.
6. Am I doing the right thing for the people who read what I write?
Something you need to know here – Although I use several AI agents, Claude is one of them who gets involved enough in my research to “know” the level of things I write and therefore something about the levels of the people who read it. That is – anywhere from non-believer to new believer to believer to beyond this site. Also – for people who walked away – or ran away – from God and might want to return to Him.
So, I left this last one pretty open to see what Claude had to say. Of course – I don’t know you and don’t presume to – but if it’s right, at least Claude thinks I’m hitting the target. The thing is – Claude will never be a Christian. But I do pray all of this helps you – real people.
✋ Am I helping people who read this?
❓ Good to know – then I can realize I’m helping people in my classes and writing who are struggling with issues at this level and not the deeper stuff – but still on the right track.
🤖✴️ That’s exactly right, and it’s a useful recalibration for teaching specifically.
Most people sitting in a Bible study aren’t asking “how does middle knowledge resolve libertarian free will against meticulous providence.” They’re asking some version of what you were actually asking: did God leave this to chance, or not — usually because they’re staring at something hard in their own life and need to know whether God is actually present in the details or just watching from a distance. That’s a pastoral question wearing a theological coat. The Joseph text answers it directly, in narrative, without anyone needing the word “Molinism” at all.
So the skill you’re describing — being able to recognize “okay, this person is at the Joseph-level question, not the feasible-worlds-level question” — is arguably more valuable for your classes and your writing than having the technical apparatus fully mastered yourself. You can always reach for the deeper scaffolding later, for your own footing or for the rare person in the room who wants to go there. But most teaching moments live at the level you’ve been operating at this whole conversation: plain language, a text that actually shows the dynamic, and the confidence to say “this is where Scripture answers it, and this is where Scripture leaves it to faithful inference.” That’s not a lesser version of the deep stuff. For most audiences it’s the more faithful version, because it doesn’t outrun what the text gives you.
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